The women talked rather nervously of the gossip of everyday and eyed the surroundings in an uncomfortable, furtive sort of way that, as Lucy wrote Brooke afterward, must have nearly made them cross-eyed. The men roamed about openly after being bidden by their hostess to make themselves at home and go where they pleased, “even into the pantry!” This they presently did. Charlie Ashton, returning with one of Miss Keith’s jars of strawberry jam carried aloft, and holding out the empty sandwich plate, begged for more bread to spread it on. “Very well,” said Brooke, recovering her old-time gayety, “only you must come to the kitchen and cut it for yourself; my hand is quite tired.” “Where did you buy such delightful sandwich bread in this out-of-the-way place?” inquired Miss Henderson, patronizingly. “It is awfully difficult to get it even in New York, and it’s one of Tokay’s specialties that lets him ask such fabulous prices for his sandwiches, and this is even a shade better. I wish I could get the recipe just to start a rival and pique him, he’s so lordly!” “The bread?” said Brooke, looking back over her shoulder, “oh, I make it. The recipe? That is one of the West family inheritances that I cannot part with,” but as she spoke an idea entered Brooke’s teeming brain, which remained there for many days awaiting development. Then the adieus were said, Brooke whispering to Lucy, as she drew her inside for a final hug, “Remember, in the spring you are to come to stay with me, even if the sky falls.” To which Lucy replied, “If I may do as you do in every way, it is a bargain.” Then the door closed, and the jingle of bells died away in the distance. Brooke, going to the kitchen, collected the crusts clipped from the sandwiches into her chicken dish, Mrs. Peck, who had miraculously kept in the background, remarking that she never saw pleasanter gentlemen and that for solid satisfaction in feeding company, give her males. The men, speeding downhill in the sleigh, praised house and hostesses alike and said that they had never been to a finer tea-party, the Bleecker brothers declaring that Brooke’s cheese sandwiches knocked the truffle and lettuce messes of Ashton’s pink, yellow, and red teas out of the game. For some unaccountable reason, however, the women were very silent, but that might have been because with Lucy’s return they were again one man short. CHAPTER XII REVELATION Winter was loitering through its last calendar month, although it usually fastens its iron claws upon the first days of spring also, and is dislodged only after a gusty struggle. Brooke turned from the cross-way into the river road, upon the daily walk she forced herself to take in all but impossible weather, according to her compact with Dr. Russell. Of walking in general she would have declared that she was passionately fond, but navigating the uneven roads, scarred by the storms of a winter of unusual severity, did not come under the usual term.